2018-09-01 UTC
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saranix this issue was discussed in this channel many times before. ActivityPub also provides such a translation via the preferredUsername property. No webfinger bs is necessary. The *only* thing that makes it 'necessary' is that mastodon insists on requiring it and they have the largest user share at present time. It is very unfair and uncool of them to break the spec like that but that's the real situation.